Regardless of your political beliefs, I pray we can all agree that current Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions are creating chaos, making American communities less safe and unleashing fear, violence and unnecessary chaos. Unbelievably, unconscionably, ICE agents are killing American citizens such as Renee Good. This must stop now.
Historically, America has been a beacon of hope. The American Dream is both real and fictional, a source of soft power around the world. Whether the American Dream is still attainable for citizens or immigrants is open to debate; however, it continues to be an inspiration.
U.S. immigration policy must be amended. Immigration is good for America. Unless you are an Indigenous person, just like me, your ancestors immigrated to America. Immigrants built America. Immigrants helped make America great.
Most immigrants are either “unskilled” or “highly skilled” (H-1B visa). America needs both. “Unskilled” immigrants perform jobs that Americans generally don’t want while providing support to grow the U.S. economy. Regarding skilled workers, our government policies should penalize corporations and companies that hire foreign workers when equally talented U.S. citizens are available. American citizens should always be given preference over foreigners even if the Americans require training or support to fill these vital positions.
We Americans need to demand that our members of Congress:
- Immediately change the funding, tactics, mission and goals of ICE officers so our communities are safe.
- Prevent masked ICE officers from grabbing people off the streets and at courthouses, schools, churches, workplaces or anywhere else. Any ICE actions that create a hostile environment that may result in the endangerment of American citizens must be prohibited by law.
- Fix U.S. immigration policy to support our economic and societal objectives.
- Hire more immigration judges to ensure timely adjudication of immigration cases.
- Reinstate protected status for immigrants from countries that are unsafe.
- Stop political retribution and the weaponization of the Justice Department.
- Reinstate oversight of the presidency by Congress.
In addition to the above, Congress needs to demand the publication of the names of the clients identified in the Jeffrey Epstein files. Every politician, business leader or person who engaged in sexual activity with a minor must be prosecuted. To do less destroys the moral authority of America, leaves sexual predators free to potentially pursue additional victims and undermines American values, morals and democracy.
— Sally Munn, Crystal Lake
Offer path to citizenship
My paternal grandfather was processed through Ellis Island in 1906. We have the form from that day listing him along with all the other Italians on the ship. The form includes name, age, marital status, occupation, town of origin, destination (Chicago), money on person ($10), literacy and who he was going to live with (his brother Lorenzo in the old northern Italian neighborhood at 23rd Street and Oakley Avenue). Also listed was whether he was a polygamist (no) or anarchist (no). That was it. With those simple questions answered, he began his path to citizenship.
Lost in all the noise surrounding Immigration and Customs Enforcement and those resisting ICE and its tactics, predictably ending in violence and death, is the singular American tradition of offering a path to citizenship to good law-abiding people who come to our country to escape violence and poverty in their country of birth. It is curious as to why many, including Democrats and moderate Republicans, have grown silent on this initiative.
Those against it will argue to do so rewards the criminal act of sneaking over the border. Those in favor will point to the loose standards of legal immigration being no guarantee of the character and legal standing of the immigrant. The Ellis Island screening was a useless predictor of the path the immigrant would choose once in the USA .
It is time for reasonable people of both parties to resurrect a path to citizenship for undocumented but law-abiding, taxpaying mothers and fathers who now find themselves on the run or in hiding.
Let’s pick a number for length of time in America — 10 years sounds right, maybe five — and a set of criteria that we can certify, such as employment, no criminal record, taxpaying, homeownership, etc. Let’s create a path toward citizenship for our good friends and neighbors who meet our mutually agreed-upon criteria and exempt them from deportation as long as they continue on the path.
We have the choice of working to find a solution or continue with armed battles on our city streets. Let’s work together to find an answer with dialogue and compromise, rather than guns and violence. After all, that is the American way.
— Frank Moroni, River Forest
What are our leaders doing?
The Democrat-associated group Indivisible recently held a vigil for those killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At the event, the organizers thanked Democratic elected officials for all they have been doing. If you keep current with the news, it is not difficult to be aware of all that Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker have been doing.
All three have made passionate speeches condemning the actions of the Donald Trump administration and of ICE agents. They have urged their fellow citizens to document the abuses of ICE and to report when agents break the law. Biss, in particular, has joined Evanston residents in following and questioning ICE agents operating in Evanston and was even present at protest actions at the Broadview ICE facility. All in all, they have been active, responsible citizens of this state and nation.
The problem, of course, is that they are not mere citizens. They are elected officials!
They have budgets, staffs and actual power. Police chiefs respond to their mayor. The governor commands the Illinois National Guard.
What have these elected officials actually done to protect the residents of our cities and state?
The answer is clear. They have done nothing of significance. While residents of Chicago and the suburbs have been threatened, harassed, attacked, imprisoned and killed, these elected officials have looked concerned, made some speeches and offered condolences.
They have not ordered the police forces under their responsibility to monitor the thuggish behavior of ICE agents, check their credentials, require them to unmask, check the legality of their warrants or apprehended them when they act in illegal or dangerous ways.
The role of elected officials in Illinois seems to be to pacify a population that is being oppressed — like the leaders of the Vichy regime.
— Luis A. Nunes Amaral, professor, Northwestern University, Evanston
Immigration reform blocked
2025 was a horrible year for immigration law enforcement, and 2026 is starting out even worse. In 2024, we almost had a solution. Senators from both parties actually did their jobs and created a bipartisan immigration reform bill. There has not been a major immigration law since the Ronald Reagan administration. But then-candidate Donald Trump told his Republican friends in Congress to kill the bill on the grounds that it was no good. What he really wanted was for the issue to remain alive so that he had something concrete on which to campaign. He could then blame the Democrats for “doing nothing.”
This bill would have put more security at the border, hired more immigration and asylum judges, sped up asylum cases and kept families together with more visa opportunities. It was not perfect, nor did it solve all immigration problems. But it could have been an important first step toward sensibly solving the issue with more bills to follow. The senators actually worked together. They did their jobs, at first.
So instead of a rational and legal way of dealing with immigrants, agents directed by the Trump administration are now rounding up truckloads of people, sending them to awful detention camps, breaking up families, arresting people without due process of law, picking up citizens and noncitizens alike, and tear-gassing and killing protesters.
Now the Democrats have a huge issue upon which to campaign.
— Jan Goldberg, Riverside
Decide on sanctuary status
I suggest that all counties and cities in our state have a binding referendum about sanctuary policies added to the next election. People are tired of the back and forth. Let the people decide.
— Larry Geraghty, Tinley Park
So many upsetting events
Chalk another one up for the increasingly violent and corrupt Donald Trump regime. Thanks to multiple videos from different vantage points, I believe most reasonable Americans saw what unfolded in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. Yet we watched Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino practically high-five each other at a news conference. We heard Vice President JD Vance call Renee Good a “deranged leftist,” and President Donald Trump referred to Good as a “professional agitator.” MAGA devotees have embraced that rhetoric.
Equally upsetting was the ICE response to a dying woman, a mother. While processing the events with my daughter, she said, “This country is really freaking me out.” I sadly agree.
— Moisette Sintov McNerney, Arlington Heights
They did not choose this
The letter “Good’s decision” (Jan. 13) hit me with its cruelty and falsehood. Renee Nicole Good did not choose to die and leave her children — that choice was made by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who shot into her car, point blank. And by the agents who refused to let the doctor at the scene tend to her. Good did not choose to die.
Moreover, Good is far from the only person who did not choose to die — whether shot, like Good, or by inhumane conditions in ICE facilities. Keith Porter, also a parent, was shot by ICE on New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles. Thirty-two people died in ICE custody in 2025. They did not choose to die.
— Diane O’Neill, Chicago
Benefits of his leadership
During the 1960s, America’s mission in Vietnam was to halt the spread of communism before it could threaten the Western world and the capitalist way of life. That collapse never came.
Today, from peace initiatives in the Middle East to the toppling of a dictator in Venezuela, the momentum is shifting. With the fanatical Iranian regime on the brink and communism fading in Cuba, the world is changing — a transformation sparked by the leadership of President Donald Trump.
— Roberto L Garcia, Chicago
When Trump abuses power
What I can’t understand is being a Republican doesn’t mean you have to praise or ignore President Donald Trump as being acceptable when he abuses his power.
Like it or not, he has created a similar mission as the German Gestapo that rounded up Jews with little to no concern as to the cruelty. Those concerned citizens who reacted against such cruelty were punished, even those who were just observers.
Look out, Venezuela and Greenland, you have to wonder what he has in mind for you.
— Raymond Hubbard, Sandwich
Trump’s regard for Iranians
The developing situation in Iran begs the question: When did President Donald Trump become concerned about the rights of protesters? Enough so that he has directed the military to develop options for Iran.
In the recent past, we’ve seen protesters on the streets of our own country assaulted, maimed and even killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol. Where’s the presidential outrage over this?
Oh wait, I forgot. Trump used up all his domestic compassion on the Jan. 6 protesters. There’s none left for those truly fighting for democracy.
— Dan McGee, Oak Park
Flying my flag upside down
The events associated with the Donald Trump administration two weeks ago — kidnapping the leader of a sovereign nation (even if he is a dictator); military threats against other nations, including a fellow NATO country; and the killing of a U.S. citizen during an ICE protest in Minneapolis — clearly show the country is in a state of distress.
For years, I have proudly displayed the U.S. flag on my home. Two weeks ago, I displayed it upside down, a symbol of distress for our country, residents and the rule of law, which has been broken as never before.
— Allen Jingst, Allons, Tennessee
Iran is a warning to us
The images coming out of Iran are horrific. They are what happens when narcissistic, power-hungry and incompetent leaders are allowed to rule unchecked.
What should terrify Americans is how familiar this pattern feels. Too many current U.S. leaders display the same arrogance, disregard for accountability and obsession with power.
I do not want this to be America’s future. These images are not just tragedy abroad. They are a warning to our country.
— Steven Sapyta, Brookfield, Wisconsin
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